So this has been a slightly unusual week in terms of the Bible reading. I haven't got a print-out of the passages I'm supposed to read each day, and I am reading from my own NIV Bible, not the Bible in 90 Days Bible. Our printer ran out of ink a while ago and we hardly use it so we haven't put out money for new ink yet! So every day I go to my bookmarked link which takes me directly to a PDF file which is a list of each day's reading to the specific verse. To my immense frustration at the end of last week, Virgin Media (our internet service provider) had a technical hitch in our area which took THREE DAYS to fix!!! Three days people!!! I was suddenly all too aware of how "attached" I am to the internet! It is a big social outlet for me, and I use it daily. Also Neil is doing a training course online once a week and he had to put off his lesson, which was very annoying! So, I couldn't check to see where I was supposed to read to each day. I figured since it's usually between 12 and 16 chapters a day, if I took 15 chapters per day then I would at the very least be up to date, and maybe even ahead by a few chapters after a few days! So that's what I did for a couple of days, and then I read 10 chapters the third day and felt too tired to read any more (I was in 1 Chronicles and reading lists and lists of names at that point!), when BING! Our internet came back, and I was amazed to find that I had read what I needed to to the exact VERSE that day! :)
Yesterday, I didn't get any reading done during the day because I visited my brother in hospital (he got appendicitis! They only just took it out in time! It was gangrenous right up to the intestinal join! Blaargh! Thank God he is okay! He is in hospital for a quite a while on a long course of heavy-duty antibiotics, and Sarah's due date with their second baby is THURSDAY this week - please pray that the baby stays put for a bit! Bennie will need 4 weeks of rest apparently. Yikes!). So then I had all of it to read in the evening, and it has been a while since that has been the case. I have gotten used to having only 4-6 chapters to read in the evening, and some days none at all, due to reading bits and pieces through the day! So yesterday I confess I got lazy and STARTED to read the Bible but put it down without hesitation when Neil got a movie out to watch! And forgot about it afterwards. So today I have caught up on yesterday's reading and started today's, but it's now pretty much bedtime and I have only read 3 of today's 15 chapters in 2 Chronicles. So I am behind at the moment, but not by too much, and I will catch up quickly if I put my mind to it.
This week I have loved reading about the miracles in 2 Kings, and been somewhat horrified at the extent of the violent wars and gruesome desperate measures (eating their own children during a terrible famine, for example *shudder*) later in the same book. I have ploughed through the lists and lists of names that I can barely pronounce, half of which look the same! I found that easier if I just read those passages out loud with a bit of rhythm, like they were poetry. I took them in quickly and easily that way, and - bonus! - got to actually understand each name by pronouncing it, as opposed to just skimming over a bunch of letters without bothering to take the time to form them into a pronouncable name!
I have been amazed at the vastness of one or two things, just facts and figures really. Like when Solomon built the temple of the Lord and he sent a message to Hiram king of Tyre, asking for men to cut cedar, pine and algum logs and send them from Lebanon for the temple construction. I loved what he (almost casually, it seemed to my reading eye!) said at the end, "I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors of ground wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of olive oil." (2 Chronicles 2:10)
That part of Solomon's message seemed to me to read something like, "Also, send me cedar, pine and algum logs. My men will work with yours because I'll need lots of timber, since the temple must be large and magnificent. Soooo, how about I give your woodsmen 120,000 bushels (4,400 kilolitres) each of wheat and barley for their trouble? And I could throw in 95,000 gallons of wine and the same of olive oil. Deal?"
ACTUAL QUANTITIES, folks!! Those were the translations in the notes at the foot of that passage! My eyes about fell out of my head when I read them (since I have no idea what cors or baths measure!). I just can't fathom 95,000 gallons of ANYTHING, let alone wine and olive oil!! ;) It just seemed so incredible to see it written so normally as an amount to send off as payment for the men's labour!
Also the Sea that was made of bronze outside the temple, the huge container that was cast and made for the priests to wash in (ceremonially) - it held three thousand baths of water! That's 14,500 gallons!!!!
Another thing that warmed my heart this week amongst the lists of people and their descendents was in 1 Chronicles 26:4-5:
"Obed-Edom also had sons:
Shemaiah the firstborn,
Jehozabad the second,
Joah the third,
Sacar the fourth,
Nethanel the fifth,
Ammiel the sixth,
Issachar the seventh,
and Peullethai the eighth.
(For God had blessed Obed-Edom)
I LOVE that little "p.s." explanation for why Obed-Edom had so many sons! That's my personal feeling on it too! :) Exactly one chapter before that, 1 Chronicles 25:4-5, there wer lists of the singers set apart for service at the temple, and I LOVED this bit for the same reason:
"As for Heman, from his sons:
Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shubael, and Jerimoth; Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti and Romamti-Ezer; Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir and Mahazioth. All these were sons of Heman the king's seer. They were given to him through the promises of God to exalt him. God gave Heman fourteen sonds and three daughters."
I love it!!!! :) The Bible calls those with many children BLESSED. It's taken me a while to open my eyes to that way of thinking over recent years, but I am sooooooooo there now. Obed-Edom's descendents (as well as his sons - his grandsons too) numbered 62, and were "very capable men" who had "the strength to do the work". God really did bless that man. I am in the trenches of broken nights, discipline crises, potty training, teething, GIVING to several (I don't know if I can call them "many" just yet, especially after reading the above lists, hehe!) dependent little children all day and all night. And it's HARD WORK. It's tiring and wearing, and stretches me as thin as I feel I can go. God enables me, of course. But THIS is the bigger picture. A generation or two down the line, I could be looking at a large branched-out family from our many small children. I can barely imagine it now, but what if it IS more than a few dozen, just my children and grandchildren and their spouses, in total? And what if we DO manage to raise our children right in God's sight, and train them up in the way they should go? How He could be glorified in the lives of our offspring!!! Surely the more of them the merrier, for God's purposes! I wonder if there really will be a day when we suddenly stand back and realise we are the "top layer" of a large, branched-out family made up of very capable men, leaders in their families, with the strength to do the work God has called them to do, for His glory. What an AWESOME vision to aspire to, and to pray towards! I really do not think, when I consider it in this light, that one can have too many children.
Well, my smallest one is waking for a midnight feed, so I will finish here! Back BEFORE next Monday hopefully!
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